SSTOs! Post your pictures here~

[drewscriver]

Okay, third attempt at this concept.

The first two both performed perfectly. They did everything they were supposed to do except, when you got to the moon, you could either land or come home. Not both.

So, I made it bigger. It's still a work in progress, the pics are orbital tests, but at 361 parts and 58 tons I'm thinking I might have overdone it slightly. (the first two were 'only' 194 & 239).

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Cool craft - the detachable aero section reminds me a bit of the Changeling.

I'll be interested to see how you develop the concept further.

Edited November 13, 2013 by drewscriver

[Bloodbunny]

I think the the keywords in Bloodbunny's post were:

As in, his skills aren't quite up to snuff just yet for SSTO designs

Don't worry Bloodbunny! Keep at it and you'll get there. Find a design that works, then refine, refine, refine!

Meh, my biggest problem is overcoming the almost religious desire of my planes to nose over towards the ground.. I don't mean out of control, I just mean keeping the heading pipper above the horizon so I'm always gaining altitude. At around 10 km when I start to get past the tropopause, it starts. Even moving my COL ahead of my COM isn't helping, so I always end up with an odd angle of attack that is always a mouse hair away from causing an end over end flip.

Any advice? (this is for FAR, not stock)

[Corona688]

High-atmospheric flight handles differently than low-atmospheric flight. You start to lose lift and control. This isn't a design flaw in your planes, just physics, even the stock SSTO ramjets seem to suffer from this. Use lots of control surfaces and more lift than you need on the ground.

Edited November 13, 2013 by Corona688

[Corona688]

Uses a 909 engine clipped inside a ramjet.

[Corona688]

And for something actually aerodynamic in any way:

[Cruzan]

Meh, my biggest problem is overcoming the almost religious desire of my planes to nose over towards the ground.. I don't mean out of control, I just mean keeping the heading pipper above the horizon so I'm always gaining altitude. At around 10 km when I start to get past the tropopause, it starts. Even moving my COL ahead of my COM isn't helping, so I always end up with an odd angle of attack that is always a mouse hair away from causing an end over end flip.

Any advice? (this is for FAR, not stock)

Ya your control surfaces become less helpful as the atmosphere becomes thinner. If there is any offset between your thrust vector and your CoM ( there usually is since people place landing gears and stuff on the bottom of their planes) then your plane will tend to nose down as your control surfaces can't fight this any more.

You can check to see how much your plane is fighting this by looking at your pitch gauge. If the gauge is slowly maxing out as you gain altitude then you might look to bring your CoM in line with your thrust!

[Starwhip]

This one has 2 reaction wheels and 8 generators to stabilize itself. Needs more, though, as it has some CoT to CoM issues at high altitudes.

EDIT: and it is REALLY air hoggy, with over 20 intakes.

[Fellow314]

Cool craft - the detachable aero section reminds me a bit of the Changeling.

I'll be interested to see how you develop the concept further.

The changeling was sort of the inspiration. That thing is very cool indeed.

[anonymousgamer]

Today, I built my first working SSTO. I may have overdone it.

It weighs in at 372 tons at 521 parts currently. By the time it reaches orbit, it weighs 130 tons.

Currently, the only thing this plane can successfully do is reach orbit. It can't land or go to other systems because of thrust balancing issues. I'm steadily improving it, though.

[Deadweasel]

Today, I built my first working SSTO. I may have overdone it.

It weighs in at 372 tons at 521 parts currently. By the time it reaches orbit, it weighs 130 tons.

Currently, the only thing this plane can successfully do is reach orbit. It can't land or go to other systems because of thrust balancing issues. I'm steadily improving it, though.

Gotta use those tags or it won't show up here!

(Imgur has a BBCode option you can copy, instead of just the link so you don't have to worry about the tags)

[Corona688]

You can't just dump an HTML link inside IMG tags and expect it to work, you have to copy the location of the image.

I think this is what anonymousgamer tried to post:

That.. is a terrifyingly huge wing. I'm amazed it worked Neat.

[Deadweasel]

You can't just dump an HTML link inside IMG tags and expect it to work, you have to copy the location of the image.

I think this is what anonymousgamer tried to post:

That.. is a terrifyingly huge wing. I'm amazed it worked Neat.

Actually, that's exactly how it works. The "broken image" leads directly to it, but the boards won't display it unless it's enclosed in the img tags.

And agreed, that has to look pretty crazy on the ground!

[Corona688]

Actually, that's exactly how it works.

I quoted him to check -- he did put the link in img tags. The link to the imgur page, i.e. an HTML page containing the image. Not the image itself. I think the difference between my link and his is the .jpg on the end. Edited November 14, 2013 by Corona688

[anonymousgamer]

And agreed, that has to look pretty crazy on the ground!

It's nowhere near as big as some of my other planes, but it's certainly the heaviest.

[Deadweasel]

I quoted him to check -- he did put the link in img tags. The link to the imgur page, i.e. an HTML page containing the image. Not the image itself. I think the difference between my link and his is the .jpg on the end.

Huh, weird. Chrome must be auto-correcting it for me then. Right click the broken image anchor, open URL in new tab, and bam: right to the image. *shrug*

At least one of us got it worked out for him.

[Deadweasel]

It's nowhere near as big as some of my other planes, but it's certainly the heaviest.

Wow. That's some astute strut work there. I would've expected the thing to be drooping like a shar pei's backside.

[Fellow314]

The imaginatively titled X53 a.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zn9669w2im0uip2/x53%20a.craft

1 fires the rockets on the lander

2 the jet engines

3 the nukes

And -

8 disengage docking ports

9 the lander legs

0 landing gear

There is an abort mode, and the craft in the pic had two pairs of sepratrons to fire it out, but these have been removed as utterly useless (they worked wonderfully on a previous incarnation)

As you can see it got Jeb to the Mun and back. Just (with judicious use of quicksave due to piloting error). As I use Mechjeb, and probably do so very badly, I suspect a skilled pilot could eek the fuel out a bit further. Oh, and as I use mechjeb, I'm afraid there are no keys assigned to open and close the rather stupid number of intakes. Sorry.

A fairly standard ascent profile, zoom to 10K, 45 (ish) and flatten out at around 25K (ish) and go like the clappers at about ten degrees (ish) from there. (I always forget to note it when I'm flying the damn thing).

Docking the lander is tricky. Again, Jeb helps, having the bottom port dock, not the one on the stern(?). Major tilting of the cradle upwards was required to jam the damn thing home, but part of that was due to the sepratrons, now removed (It may be that the docking port on the cradle needs to be a smidge further forwards.)

I suspect it might suffer some refinement, but it worked. If you want to have a go, let me know how you find it.

Oh, and it's 41.7t and a mere(!) 223 parts.

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Edited November 15, 2013 by Fellow314

[Mesklin]

Ladies and gentlemens, let me introduce you new edge of space ships technology: beauty and powerful space yacht "Silver bullet".

This ship utilized revolutionary technology: super density equipment superposition . With this technology you will not see ugly intakes and wings, also no more nozzles that sticking out from different places old designed ships.

"Silver bullet" equipped twin powerfull turbo air breathing engine, super reliable and efficient nuclear engine Nuke-3000, also yacht has turbo mode (press button 3) for people who like fast and vigorous ascend from surface of planets.

You do not need to have deep knowledge in art of piloting space ships, our yacht equipped modern autopilot computer HAL 9000, with this computer you only need select desired destination and relax in your comfortable armchair. For eliminating boring in the long flights you can use new super virtual reality multimedia system (for activation press 7).

Yacht equipped super easy landing system on atmospheric planets based on two drogue chutes (for activation press 8) and emergency escape system that can return you back to Kerbin surface in safety even from low Kerbin orbit.

No compromises, this ship beautiful and powerful in one time, you can reach distant bodies of Kerbin solar system without refueling: Mun and Minmus, Dune and Laythe and, of course, return back in one piece.

See technical detail in our booklet:

[table=width: 500, class: outer_border]

[tr]

[td]Ship mass[/td]

[td]18.04 t[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Fuel and oxidizer mass[/td]

[td]8.1t[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Parts count[/td]

[td]112[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]dV on low Kerbin orbit[/td]

[td]about 4000 m/s (on nuclear engine)[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Round-trip bodies[/td]

[td]Mun, Minmus, Dune, Ike, Laythe[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

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For test drive you can proceed in our office

No one cheats were used when this craft was designed.

[KissSh0t]

@Mesklin

Very nice clever design.

[Sparker]

Let me introduce my latest spaceplane.

This is a cargo SSTO spaceplane. I made this plane to deliver payload from the orbit of Laythe to the surface. The plane is supposed to land with some payload and with almost no fuel(it can be dangerous to land an overloaded plane). There are some KAS winches installed inside the cargo bay to unload the payload. After it is refueled on the surface it can send itself to back low orbit. Actually it is a little overpowered for Laythe because I was testing it on Kerbin.

I have performed two landings on Laythe with this spaceplane, everything worked as it had to.

[quasarrgames]

so.

much.

gosh.

darn.

CLIPPING!

I am not against clipping, BUT THAT'S JUST INSANE!

Also, it must be hard to refuel it.

[Corona688]

Most of my experiments with clipping have ended with parts reasserting their proper spacetime dimensions, suddenly, and with extreme violence.

[quasarrgames]

USUALLY that's fixed by allowing part clipping in the editor (which i guess you already did), or strutting together all the clipping pieces.

[KissSh0t]

Part Clipping is over rated...

Part Clipping while not using "Part Clipping" is where it's at..

*does awesome gansta pose*

[Jasmir]

Here are my very often used SSTOs:

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Both use only stock parts, but you'll need FerramAerospaceResearch to use them properly. DRE is also usable with them.

The plane:

SSTO small.craft

The plane is balanced. Nearly no COM movment due emptying the fueltanks.

Actiongroups:

Stage: Drop anything that is connected to the ventral docking port. (Hint: Attach a droptank here if you want....)

1: Toggle the jetengine and the intakes

2: Toggle the Rocketengines

Gear: Toggle the back & winggears (aka "Rovermode"), the Frontgear has to manged by right-clicking

Brake: Toggle brakes of the Roverwheels and the back & winggears. (The frontgear-brake will never used, so no flipover while braking, even on high-speeds.)

Usage:

I recommend to use mechjeb for throttle management, but _not_ for attitude-mangement. SAS is better here.

Switch the jetengine on by rightclick, ascent @25° pitch to 25km, hold that height and accelerate to 1300m/s. Then pitch _gently_ up. At 27km you should reach near 1500m/s with more than 130m/s up-vector. Activate the rockets by pressing 2. If the throttle reaches less than 1/3, press 1 to deactivate the jet-engine /close the intakes. Then business as usual. (If you aim for 100km orbit, near 800m/s DV left + good half tank of jetfuel should be the outcome).

The Rocket:

Laythe-Lander.craft

Actiongroups:

1: Toggles the engines

5: Deploy Cutes

Usage:

Nothing fancy here. Threat it like every other Rocket.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Jasmir